On Thursday, a wealthy Nigerian politician and his wife were found guilty of illegally transporting a street trader from Lagos to Britain in order to harvest his kidney for a transplant for their seriously ill daughter.
Prosecutors claimed that Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and his wife Beatrice, 56, lured the man to London in February last year with a few thousand dollars for his organ and the promise of work in Britain.
According to the Old Bailey court in London, Ekweremadu, an opposition senator in the southern Nigerian state of Enugu and a former deputy senate president, and his wife were significant figures in Nigerian society with power, influence, and a “significant degree of wealth.”
They were convicted of conspiracy to arrange another person’s travel for the purpose of exploitation, along with a Nigerian doctor, Obinna Obeta, 51, who prosecutors described as a middleman.
“This was a horrific plot to exploit a vulnerable victim by trafficking him to the UK for the purpose of transplanting his kidney,” Chief Crown Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec said.
“The convicted defendants showed complete disregard for the victim’s welfare, health, and well-being and used their considerable influence to maintain a high level of control throughout, with the victim having little understanding of what was really going on here.”
Sonia Ekweremadu, the intended recipient of the organ, who has a serious and deteriorating kidney condition that necessitates dialysis, was found not guilty of any part of the plan.
The case was brought to light when the man, who made a living in Lagos selling telephone parts from a market cart, went to the police and claimed he had been trafficked and that someone was attempting to harvest his kidney.
The proposed transplant was scrapped after a consultant at London’s Royal Free hospital became suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the proposed donor, a man in his twenties who cannot be named for legal reasons and whom the family had tried to pass off as Sonia’s cousin.
Donating a kidney is not illegal in the United Kingdom, but offering a reward is, regardless of whether the donor is complicit.
“However, there are certain things that money and status cannot guarantee in any family, including good health,” prosecutor Hugh Davies told the court.
According to police, the guilty verdicts marked the first time in Britain that someone had been convicted of human trafficking for the purpose of organ harvesting.
“This conviction sends a clear message to the rest of the world that the UK will not tolerate the international industry in illegal organ removal,” said Detective Inspector Esther Richardson in a statement.
On May 5, Ike and Beatrice Ekweremadu, as well as Obeta, will be sentenced.
